thousandisland, i believe i'm quite aligned with what you are
feeling now. Just turned 21 and waiting to get into a university in
2 months. These questions have been drifting in my mind for a quite
some time already, i myself have not found a clear direction.
However, I believe the mission in life relates to how your
existance in this world is valuable to the rest of our community.
It is something that we slowly explore and discover, and gets more
refined as we experience and grow. Bringing happiness to your
family and friends is just but a way to satisfy emotional needs, it
cannot constitue to your personal mission in life. Contribution to
others and personal mission has its differences.
Your personal mission has the capacity and potential to
influence people at large, because contribution in lined with
mission is supported by an endless stream of emotional energy that
drives actions, and recharges itself as a consequence of your
actions. Personal mission drives you towards success and emotional
fulfilment.
I also believe that working for another person will not get you
closer to your mission. When you are working, you are providing
value to the top management, your value and contribution would
always be limited by how the system in the organisation work. The
top management are the people who are the one in lined with their
missions and bringing value to the community, not you. When you
limit your freedom to serve, you limit tremendous amount of
potential value you could bring to your community, and thus the
community will not reward you back with the big paycheck. Your life
will be dependent on the paycheck of your employer, and you will
never be free.
However in this society we live in, many will question and
challenge the practicality of minding your own business. Many are
heldback by the fear of uncertainty and rejection that comes along
with serving the community at large. The prospect of not having a
stable paycheck and facing rejection that comes along with it is
real. But if you are truly keen on finding that path, you will find
courage to break away from the main steam ideals, and become the
few people in their lifetime to have found durable filfulment;
people who can smile in their deathbed because they know they have
fulfilled the reason for existance in this world.
I'm personally from a low income family and have secured myself
a double degree programme in NTU. However, i also recognise that
getting myself a high paying job in the future will not drive me
towards my mission.
I believe, to find your mission out, you must first overcome
your fears which dictates your future actions. Simply because a
mission drafts actions as a consequence to serve, not as a
consequence of fears.
Very intriguing and insightful. That being
said, I'm too like you searching for the mission of our
lives.
Especially agree with your 4th para on not working for
others. That's why my parents always frown upon my desires not to
commit to a 9-5 office work solely for the fat pay cheque. But to
quell their "fears", i'm just going through the motion to get a
bachelors and then forge my paths ahead.
Interestingly, i have friends from both spectrums. One of them
are contended with status quo for now and perhaps for dont know how
many years to come. The other has friends who have lofty ambitions
but are obviously not rooted to the ground.
Take for e.g. one friend of mine who's in sunshine empire (and
now, emmax). I don't want to bring in the whole debate on MLM but
apparently he thinks his "comrades" in SE are the most ideal
business partners he can find. Almost everytime i meet him, he will
be sharing about his grandeur business plans. Well, he said he's
seen James Phang in flesh and has faith in the emmax platform.
Worse thing, he told me that university education is totally
worthless and the only point he's studying is to pacify his
parents. That being said, i need to qualify that although i haven't
started my education in uni, i believe the rigorous training in
terms of thinking and the exposure is a prep for my life ahead.
To make things more interesting, he's also qt a seminar junkie
going for national achiever's congress and an upcoming forex
course. He told me after graduating from the forex course, he will
receive a trader's cert. Said that will be equivalent to a MBA and
that will grant him better chance into an investment bank. I can't
help but feel skeptical about his claims.
At the end of the day, in the capacity of his friend, I'll still
wish him all the best in whatever he does. If he falls and licks
his wounds, i will fetch him some tissues. If he rises above the
rest, i'll be happy for him deep down.
Ultimately, for myself my fears driving my search - i don't want
to be in either spectrum. I don't want to contend with a life
I'm not interested in, considering we both are already in our
quarter life crisises. Neither do i want to rush into believing
i've foudn my first pot of gold and acting motivated. I like to
believe true motivation comes innately.
So till then, i guess we'll still be searching.
